The Power of Hells Canyon
At night by the shores of the Snake River, the rushing water has a curious effect, blocking out even the memory of automobile traffic, ringing telephones and portable stereos. The wild river, looming canyon walls and a canopy of stars transport the setting to a time before man began changing the world around us.
The place is Hells Canyon, in the panhandle of western Idaho. The attraction is wilderness.
Hells Canyon (also known as the Grand Canyon of the Snake River) is the deepest and most rugged gorge in North America and home of the raging Snake. The Snake River, which at that point in its 1,000-mile life runs north, rages because of the 700-foot drop in elevation from the Hells Canyon Dam in the south to Heller Bar, 84 miles north.
What is a picture-postcard view from one of the scenic overlooks high on the rim is heart-stopping on the river. Churning rapids push at challenging boats, threatening to crash them against the rocks; whirlpools lie in ambush, reaching out to suck them to the bottom. At the river’s edge the mountains begin, stretching up so high they blot out any thought of a world beyond. On the Idaho side the peaks are close to 10,000 feet high, across the river in Oregon, nearly 8,000.
Surrounding the canyon is the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. Beyond that to the west, in Oregon, is the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest; to the east, the Nez Perce National Forest. In the canyon there are no grocery stores, no motels, no restaurants. Roads are few, and seasonal. Virtually anything of any size to come in or go out uses the river, as was the case 100 years ago.
The Forest Service makes all this clear in its literature, and adds: ‘’Rattlesnakes are common in the canyon. . . . Poison ivy is abundant.’’
Wild, exciting, but, oddly, not threatening. The sense is of experiencing something primal, but satisfying. There are no billboards, no signs of any kind. No bridges clutter the space between the canyon walls; no fraternity letters insult the majestic rocks. There is no garbage to offend the shore. The Snake has a captivating presence, especially when you are riding in one of the little aluminum boats used by nearly everyone on the river. Your attention is caught as the current runs smoothly for a few hundred yards, then suddenly bursts into frenzied torrents that send the craft dipping and spinning, pulling it one way and then the other. Until, just as suddenly, it is again calm. Only when it is calm can you divert your attention, to the rocks that rise up from the water, to the stretches of barren shore, to the occasional hackberry tree, the straight trunk and bush-like top noble in its isolation. And on, past the rare cabin or ranch, to the endless hills, to catch sight of an elk poised on a rocky ledge, a man on horseback leading a string of mules, each loaded down with supplies, an eagle soaring on a high current of air.
Those boats are to the canyon what the railroad was to the American West. Whatever degree of civilization exists, the boats have brought. Lumber, refrigerators and ranges, and the gas to run them all come by boat.
And tourists. A dozen different outfits run tours into the canyon, but nearly half the business goes to one - Beamer’s Heller Bar Excursions. It has the most boats, and owns the only overnight camp operated the year round in the canyon.
‘’It’s kind of a monopoly,’’ says Wally Beamer, who owns the lodge and cabins at Copper Creek, about halfway into the canyon. He also transports freight, carries parties of hunters, and has the mail contract.
Once a week he picks up the mail from the post office in Lewiston, Idaho, at the head of the canyon, and delivers to the 18 stops along the river. He added the mail and lodge to his excursion and freight business in 1981, when he bought out Dick Rivers. Mr. Rivers had been there for 24 years; changes come slowly to Hells Canyon. Mr. Beamer runs his boating operation out of Heller Bar, 32 miles south of Lewiston and just outside the National Recreation Area. It is an attractive little riverfront restaurant and dock, not far from the point where Washington, Oregon and Idaho meet. All of his tours begin and end 24 miles closer to Lewiston, at the Asotin Marina, a most convenient point since the road from Asotin to Heller Bar is scenic but unpaved and twisting.
Several kinds of river trips are offered: the one-day tour, for those who only want to sample the canyon; fishing holidays of one, two and three days, for serious sportsmen; and something billed as the ‘’ultimate wilderness experience,’’ a five-day, four-night adventure that includes boat rides in and out of the canyon and three days of horseback riding and camping in the wilderness.
The perfect compromise is the weekly mail run, which leaves every Wednesday morning from Asotin and returns from Copper Creek to the north the following afternoon. All meals and the overnight stay at Copper Creek are included for $145.
Mr. Beamer has six boats, ranging in size from 26 to 30 feet. All are shallow-draft, aluminum-hulled ‘’jet boats,’’ so-called because of their propulsion, a prop-inside-a-tube configuration that sucks water up from the bottom and forces it out the back, shooting the boat forward.
The jet boats are ideal for all seasons. The water is high and violent during the spring, often ripping through the canyon at 20 miles an hour. In summer the water level drops, exposing jagged rocks looming above the boat; and worse, waiting barely below the surface. The boats are fast enough to fight the strongest current, light enough to avoid most of the rocks, and strong enough to survive when they hit one. Most are open on hot days, with tops for when it gets cool, and rear curtains for when it is cold.
Tourists start coming to Hells Canyon in March, when the wildflowers are in full bloom and the birds return. Dozens of species can be seen, including large hawks, bald eagles, ospreys, blue herons, owls, ducks and geese.
Summer is the busy season, with visitors coming from as near as Lewiston and as far as China, New Zealand and South Africa. One day last July, Mr. Beamer ferried some 300 people through to the camp at Copper Creek, and had a full complement of 70 overnight guests at the lodge’s pleasant if modest cabins. (Cabins used during cold months are heated; toilets and showers are in a heated, separate cabin.) While the conventional tourist trade drops off midway through October, a visit in late fall offers a worthwhile bonus: a preview of life in Hells Canyon in winter. Snow in the higher elevations sends livestock along with deer, elk, cougar and bobcat down to the canyon floor, where daytime temperatures reach 50 even late into the year. The regular tour schedule may fall away, but the mail boat operates every Wednesday and Thursday, regardless.
By November the green ground cover of summer has turned brown, adding to the starkness of the landscape. Cowboys, dressed in chaps and broad-brimmed hats, ride down to the river to collect their mail and exchange a few friendly words. At one stop a woman waits patiently for medical supplies ordered from Lewiston; at another, a rancher awaits a new set of points for his own boat. The mail boat is their lifeline.
Summertime visitors enjoy frequent stops at the canyon’s sandy beaches for swimming, but during the spring and fall the concentration is on history. Shortly after entering the canyon the boat begins visiting the sites of gold and copper mining operations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
One stop is at Eureka, a copper mine once served by 150 men, a stamp mill, two-story hotel and other buildings. Scarcity of ore was already suspected when Eureka’s link with the outside, the steamer Imnaha, sank in 1903. The mine soon closed, leaving only stone foundations for tourists to explore. Even the wood from the buildings is gone.
There is also a stop at the plaque marking the crossing of the Nez Perce Indians. Ancestors of the Nez Perce lived in Hells Canyon 6,000 years ago. They were still there in 1860 when gold was discovered, and were eventually driven out. In June 1877 they crossed a flooding Snake River, heading for Canada.
The boat reaches Copper Creek by noon. After a boxed lunch of fried chicken and potato salad, there is plenty of time for freelance sightseeing, to follow one of the trails along the river, hike back into the high country, or swim from the beach.
‘’We always have a little get-together late in the afternoon,’’ says Myrna Beamer, head of shore-side activities. While the excursion company has no license for liquor, beer and wine are available, and guests are invited to bring their own bottles.
‘’Sage plays the guitar, I serve hors d’oeuvres, and everybody has a grand old time,’’ Mrs. Beamer says, referring to Sage Silver, the Beamers’ assistant, whose handlebar mustache makes him look like Wyatt Earp.
Dinner at Copper Creek is an occasion: New York sirloin, which Sage Silver grills out on the deck, new potatoes and onions, homemade bread, salad, and for dessert, cheesecake. There are tables inside, but most guests sit out on the deck, with the Snake River rushing by. Afterward, there is more music, and games in the recreation building next door.
My visit to Hells Canyon, halfway through last November, was a little less festive. I was the only passenger on the mail boat. After lunch, I tagged along with Mrs. Beamer while she fished unsuccessfuly for steelheads - rainbow trout that migrate to the sea before returning to fresh water to spawn.
Late that afternoon three hunters on horseback rode down to the lodge from their camp in the high country. They came because they heard there was beer, and company. They were tall and lean, with large, drooping mustaches and old, floppy cowboy hats pulled low over their eyes. We sat there while the light drained from the room, nobody thinking to turn on a light. As they talked in quiet, strong voices about a week of cold nights and the frustration of bagging no elk, it could have been 1884 as easily as 1984.
The second day on the river featured a stop at the Kirkwood Historic Ranch, once the home of Len Jordan, who left Hells Canyon to become Governor of Idaho. The log cabin on the property has been turned into a museum by the Forest Service and contains artifacts from the canyon and the ranching that went on there. Outside are pieces of antique farm equipment, mowers and balers and such.
Traces of the Nez Perce culture along the river include remnants of prehistoric pit houses, but most impressive are the petrographs, colorful paintings on rocks, some of which can be seen without ever leaving the boat.
The mail boat goes as far as Rush Creek, 17 miles north of Hells Canyon Dam. That is considered the end of navigation, because the river farther south is so violent. It is on the return trip that the power of the Snake becomes so evident. Going down river - with the current - is much more dangerous than going up. The undertow pulls at the boat from beneath the surface and the high rolling waves thrash the hull, pushing it toward the rocks. There is a stop back at Copper Creek for lunch, and the break is welcome, but before long you’re back on the river, hanging on. And all the while you can see, on the wall of the canyon, a white line a full 12 feet up, testifying to the potency of this river during the spring floods.
The ride back to Heller Bar makes two deep impressions: First is respect for the river captain, who seems never out of control. (Mrs. Beamer likes to tell of the 90-year-old women who do not flinch.) Second is respect for everything that Hells Canyon represents. In an age when supersonic transports jet across the Atlantic in three hours, when satellites flash living images instantly across the world, how wonderful to visit a place where a river is king and wilderness is law.
TRIPS, ROOMS AND DINING Getting There Access to Hells Canyon is through Lewiston, Idaho, which is served by Cascade and Horizon Airlines from Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash. If you are driving, Lewiston is on U.S. 12, off U.S. 95, and about 275 miles northwest of Boise. In Lewiston, accommodations are available at the Tapadera and Pony Soldier Motor Inns, at $35 to $40 for a double, and the Sacajawea Lodge for slightly less. On the River Beamer’s Heller Bar Excursions offers trips into the canyon of from one to five days. Prices start at $65, and reservations are necessary. For information, contact the company at State Route 4, Post Office Box 4A, Asotin, Wash. 99402 (509-243-4499). You’ll need a windbreaker for the boat and walking shoes. Running shoes or sneakers are fine. The sun is strong, but spring and fall nights are very cool, so pack a sweater. If you have binoculars, take them.
Most of the other tours into the canyon operate only from May to October. Among them are: Snake River Outfitters (Post Office Box F, Lewiston, Idaho 83501; 208-799-8662), offering two- and three-day trips at $100 a day, using their lodge at Kirby Creek; and Held’s Canyon Tours (118 Sycamore, Clarkston, Wash. 99403; 509-758-3445), with one-day trips for $75. Restaurant Lewiston has a good restaurant called Janni Annies that is open for lunch and dinner. The dinner menu features specialties from different parts of the country, especially the Pacific states - Alaska king crabs’ legs; San Francisco cioppino, a spicy tomato-based stew with fish and seafood; and some fresh fish from the region. (My broiled salmon, at $13.95, was excellent.) The restaurant also has a wide selection of wines from the Northwest, priced from $8 to $13. S. R.